Justice League Reviews: 12 Early Reactions You Need To See

5. Steppenwolf Is Poor

It's almost a cliche to talk about how comic book movie villains tend to struggle, and Steppenwolf - who Polygon call "the most boring supervillain to grace the big screen since Victor Von Doom in Fox’s 2015 Fantastic Four" - appears to be another in the disappointing pile.

As Uproxx puts it:

"Steppenwolf is just one of many problems with Justice League, but for the life of me I just can’t get over that of allllll the villains in the DC universe, the decision was used to make Steppenwolf the bad guy. A villain so few non-DC readers know that there’s an elaborate exposition, then a flashback scene, just to explain who Steppenwolf is and why’s he so mad. Of all the bad villains in superhero movies, Steppenwolf is easily the worst in recent memory. He’s just a big CGI cipher for “bad guy.” He shows up, announces he’s evil, then our good guys have to fight him. With this aspect of the movie they didn’t even try, and that’s so disappointing."

EW's review equates his issues with X-Men: Apocalypse:

"Justice League has an Apocalypse problem. Like that big blue X-Men baddie, Steppenwolf is one of those patently phony CGI creations that gives the film a uncanny-valley shlockiness. He looks like a cross between a Viking and a billy goat. The best thing about him is that he booms threats in the menacing basso profundo of Ciaran Hinds. The worst thing is…pretty much everything else, including his world-destroying M.O. to find and unite three all-powerful, vibrating supernatural “mother boxes” that are only slightly less ridiculous than Infinity Stones. Is it really that hard to come up with a decent villain who wants something other than geometric maguffins?"

The special effects, generally, are an issue in The Independent's review:

“I am working with children,” Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) sighs in mock exasperation toward the end of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. She has a point. This is surely the most infantile of recent superhero yarns - a film that squanders the talents of an impressive ensemble cast and eschews any meaningful characterisation in favour of ever more overblown special effects."

And even Forbes' glowing review suggests it might have been better if they'd allowed Ciaran Hinds to actually perform and not hidden him under CGI.